Artificial Intelligence Algorithms used in fight against ISIS

The Islamic State or ISIS or IS or ISIL is one of the problems plaguing the world right now, so much so that hackvist group Anonymous took it upon themselves by targeting Twitter accounts spreading propaganda about terrorist group ISIS. The targeted accounts have been flooded with images of Japanese anime characters with the aim of trying to influence search engine results for any terms linked to the Islamic State. Twitter has also suspended or shut down some accounts as a result of the actions by Anonymous. In a concerted effort, Anonymous is also targets Facebook pages, blogs, websites and web proxies used by the supporters. The efforts are seen as a dilution of the ISIS agenda.

The BBC is now reporting that a group of US researchers are using Artificial intelligence in a bid to understand the military strategy of the Islamic State. The algorithms created have been able to analyze 2,200 recorded incidents of ISIS activities from the second half of 2014 with the intent of establishing a link between air strikes and roadside bomb attacks as well as a connection with the jihadist military tactics.

One of the key take outs from the analysis was the increased usage of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) whenever there was increased air strikes against them. The researchers also concluded that there were more vehicle borne bombs before a large military operations by ISIS. The researchers also established that IS was more complex and dynamic in their strategies and AI made the computational analysis easier. They also added that their operations were largely predictable and the information gathered by the military was sufficient for the researchers to perform the analytics.